Prisoners high on liquid drugs dripped on 'letters and books', report says

HIGH: Former prisons minister Chris Grayling had banned books being sent to prisons in 2013

Friends and relatives dip the paper in herbal XTC which lags simply put in their mouths to get high.

Books or letters with specially marked pages are sent to the 800-capacity HMP Stocken prison in the east Midlands.

Prison inspectors published a report on the issue last week.

Prisoners simply pick the letters or books up and take the drugs themselves or sell them on.

The drugs are said to get into your system "faster than capsules" and are currently non-detectable in prison drugs tests.

A ban on friends and relatives sending books in to prisoners - introduced by former Prisons Minister Chris Grayling in 2013 - was recently lifted after it was ruled "unlawful", meaning books can be sent in to prisoners now.

GETTY

FAST: The drugs are said to get into your system quicker than normal capsules

In June this year a prison officer at the jail nearly died after being stabbed in the neck by a lag during a "riot" of lags crazed on legal highs.

Thirty prisoners were immediately transferred to high-security jails, with a Prison Service spokesman saying the riot was "totally unacceptable".

And on September 25 this year an urgent investigation was launched after a lag at HMP Stocken was found to have £29,000-worth of legal highs hidden in a speaker after he was transferred from HMP Nottingham.

The Independent Monitoring Board report states that inspectors were "very worried" about the "rapidly increasing problems" of legal highs in the jail.

The report calls on the Tory government and prison chiefs to "take immediate action".

A Prisons Service spokesperson said that the IMB report highlighted that despite the concerns over legal highs, HMP Stocken was a "safe, well-managed and improving prison".

He said: "We take a zero tolerance approach to drugs, and have a range of robust measures in place to detect them.

"These include the use of drugs dogs trained in detecting New Psychoactive Substances, as well intelligence-led searches."

SG

PRISON: The 800-capacity HMP Stocken, in East MidlandsRelated articles